


names like pain cries, names like tombstones

by behradtarazi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Coping, Gen, Minor Character Death, POV Luke Skywalker, Trauma, basically just how luke deals with people's faith in him i guess?, mostly for luke but also slightly for leia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:33:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26373520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/behradtarazi/pseuds/behradtarazi
Summary: Faith burns like hurtling towards Tatooine’s suns, and maybe one day Luke will get used to it, but until then every single nerve in his body is lit up like a live wire, and it never really ends. No, it never really ends.-The Rebellion makes Luke their hero, and the only thing he can do is try not to crack under the weight of it.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	names like pain cries, names like tombstones

They say Luke Skywalker killed death.

They say Luke Skywalker killed death, and that now he can’t be beaten, that blaster bolts swerve to avoid him and vibroblades break on his skin.

They say Luke Skywalker killed death, and they make him their hero, their hope, their savior, their winner of impossible battles, their shining face of the future.

They say Luke Skywalker killed death, and it’s hard not to believe it. It’s hard not to believe it, because they are so sure of it, they have to be so sure of it, and Luke looks at their faith and their desperation and tries not to drown in it, tries not to crumble under the weight. Jedi weren’t meant to be deified, but here he is. Here he is. 

It hurts.

The all-consuming heaviness of the Rebellion’s faith hurts. He was raised a farm boy on Tatooine, not a hero in the making. And maybe that’s what makes him so good, so bright, so beloved, but it also means he didn’t see the ache coming.

He asks Leia once how she handles it, sitting on the floor of her small room too late at night, half a bottle of Corellian brandy sitting in between them. His words come out too raw, like open wounds, and for a moment there he hopes she didn’t hear, hopes she’ll ignore him, hopes that maybe he didn’t actually say anything out loud.

She turns to him with kerosene eyes, clear and sharp, and it’s hard not to remember the stories people tell about the last Princess of Alderaan, staring down Moffs and Dark Lords alike. Her gaze is searching, studying his face carefully, like she’s finding the right words to say or trying to decide what he wants to hear. He doesn’t know what he wants to hear. Doesn’t know if there’s anything that can make this better, and maybe that’s what makes her soften, finding that helplessness in him. 

“I don’t know,” she says eventually, truthfully. “I asked my mother the same thing, once, when I was a little girl. I thought there was some kind of secret to leading that she’d whisper in my ear when I was becoming the new queen.” Her lips twist up into the slightest hint of a smile, warm and hurting. “I don’t think there are any secrets to it, Luke. I think there’s just trying, and knowing that whatever happens...you did your best. It’s not fair that everyone’s relying on us, but that’s what we’ve been handed, and that’s what we have to learn to accept.”

She's right. He knows that she's right. That doesn't mean he has to like it. Neither of them do.

Luke remembers the day that he blew up the Death Star.

He remembers the day that he blew up the Death Star, but he doesn’t remember the feeling of victory, because it faded all too fast, replaced by blood in his mouth and agonies frozen, carefully tucked behind his lips. 

He didn’t let his smile fade, didn’t let the laughter stop, celebrated with the rest of the Rebellion and gave the grin of an angel when Leia draped that gold medal around his neck, but. But. Later, they were drinking and dancing and letting themselves have one night to dream before all the work began again, and Luke sat there and watched them make beauty out of a battlefield and thought, _My best friend just killed himself for me._

He thought, _My best friend just killed himself for me_ , because Biggs had, Biggs had put himself in between Luke and a TIE fighter because he believed with everything he had in him that Luke could make that miraculous shot, and it was in that moment, watching that collision, that he learned the true terror of trust.

Faith burns like hurtling towards Tatooine’s suns, and maybe one day Luke will get used to it, but until then every single nerve in his body is lit up like a live wire, and it never really ends. No, it never really ends.

How do men become myths?

How does the line blur between the truth and the dream? How is a name etched permanently in history, slipping away from a battlefield and up onto a pedestal, changing along the way, going from a boy with lightning in his veins, shaking and afraid, to a returning hero, fierce and uncompromising?

No, it’s not rhetorical. Luke’s asking. He’s asking. He wants to know.

Luke walked out of the Battle of Endor with his father’s blood on his hands. He can still feel it, even now, years later, the electricity racing through him, the hum of a nearby death. He had been ready to die. He had been ready to go up in flames with the battle station. That didn’t stop the pain of it, the ghost of his fear. Every nerve in his body had been _screaming_ for it to end, _please,_ screaming for him to _let go._

He hadn’t. On his good days, that’s not a miracle.

Luke walked out of the Battle of Endor with his father’s blood on his hands, and somehow that’s made him a storybook hero rebels tell their children about - or maybe he’s the villain.

He has a sword of fire and his name alone sends soldiers running and he has killed more people than he can count. Does that make a hero or a villain? It depends on who you ask.

Well, maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't. He isn't sure that he would know. These days, when he walks into a room, they either cheer or go deadly silent.

(There are a lot of maybes.)

He’s not the villain in many stories, except for occasionally his own. He tells Leia once that he thinks he should be in jail for all of the people he’s killed, and in between her horror and her amusement he finds her fierce gaze, the one that says _If we’re going to hell for this, stars know I’m happy to be the first in line._

He should know by now that there are shades of gray. His father killed the Emperor and saved the day; his father Fell and butchered millions. Light and Dark aren’t always so stark, so clear, he _does_ know that by now.

It’s easier to offer forgiveness, to offer absolution, to anyone other than himself. The Rebellion made him their hero and he has been trying every day to earn it. The Rebellion made him their hero and he has been trying every day to learn how to hold hearts in hands that don’t tremble.

If this is a story, and Luke doesn’t think it would make a good one, then this is the moral: trying.

How does a man become a myth?

He builds himself a weapon from a long gone era and throws it aside. He closes his eyes and he loves and he hopes it’s enough. 

He just hopes it’s enough.

It’s all he has left to offer.


End file.
